Communication Revolution by Robert W. McChesney Critical Junctures and the Future of Media

In Communication Revolution—both a sharp and cogent analysis of the history of media studies and a clarion call for citizen participation—Robert McChesney argues that with the Internet and wireless technology set to overtake traditional media, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build a more egalitarian communication system. He brilliantly shows how communication scholarship has failed to rise to the challenge of conceiving what this system might look like, leaving it to the burgeoning media reform movement (in which he has been a key player) to fill the vision vacuum.

Bringing both his authoritative analysis and unparalleled historical knowledge to bear on an urgent issue of our time, McChesney challenges us to transform the way we think about media. As Noam Chomsky has said, “Robert McChesney’s work has been of extraordinary importance. . . . It should be read with care and concern by people who care about freedom and basic rights.”

Robert W. McChesney is Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy" and "Our Media, Not Theirs", and co-editor of "Monthly Review".

Unrated Critic Reviews for Communication Revolution

The Guardian

After a leisurely history of the academic field of "communication" that takes up half the book, McChesney does finally get around to describing, and explaining well, the issues of media reform he enjoins his colleagues to address, such as community-owned newsrooms, or "Net Neutrality", the princi...